Imagine
by Lazy-ass-Ninja
Summary: Sometimes Yzak would lie awake and imagine what kind of person Piloted the Strike.


Yzak had developed an image in his head from the moment his team was sent after the strike. He imagined the pilot of the strike, thinking what he looked and acted like. It was a fun little game that he played when he couldn't fall asleep at night. He would sit there in his darkened room listening to Dearka snore and going over everything he had learned about the pilot from his numerous battles with him.

At first before he had any real knowledge he had assumed that the pilot must be a super soldier. There was no other way that he could best so many Coordinators in battle. He had imagined a battle scarred muscled man in his thirties. He liked to imagine that the man had a gruff voice, and that he was on the legged ship boasting about his numerous victories to those weak naturals.

It served to help him get angrier at the pilot making it all the easier to attack the man in battle, to pretend that this was the only life that this man knew.

Then when Lacus Clyne was being returned he saw the pilot's body.

He was a skinny kid, no real muscles, nothing like how he had imagined.

He spent many frustrated nights deleting his prior image of a muscled 'man's man', and creating a new image. He imagined a lithe young man, someone who liked to manipulate other people. Who smiled viciously as he hurt. A person who could look you in the eye, smile, and then stab you. Returning Ms. Clyne was just part of his plan. Since he was someone who liked to plan things out eight thousand steps at ahead of time. Yes, truly an evil human being. Someone with burning red eyes, the color of blood.

It helped him hate natural humans all the more. Made him hate the fact that they trained their soldiers so young to be such awful people. That they made such a blood thirsty guy that he was willing to sacrifice a whole fleet just to protect the ship he was on.

He was a monster.

Then he was on earth with Dearka and working with the famed Desert Tiger, Andrew Waltfeld.

He continued playing his little imagination game until one day he heard news that the Desert Tiger had been attacked by a group of rebels only to be saved by a boy who was identified, by Andrew, as the pilot of the Strike only after he had left.

The guards described his attire, casual, untucked, and comfortable.

Every guard mentioned how young he was, how he couldn't have been more then sixteen.

He found out that they had a photo of the pilot when he was within the Tiger's mansion.

The photo wasn't very good, all you could see was that he had brown hair and his eyes, the rest of it obscured by the blond haired girl that had been with him.

His eyes were a grayish purple.

His eyes were sad.

When he found the Desert Tiger he demanded an explanation from him, asking why he had let the Strike Pilot go, angry that his image of the boy was wrong yet again.

With a amused smile Andrew answered him, "I liked him."

Another couple of nights he spent furiously deleting the image of a lithe monster and instead a kid. He imagined a boy with unruly hair and tanned skin who liked to wear something comfortable when he wasn't in his Earth alliance uniforms. Someone who laughed and smiled and had friends who he cared about when he wasn't fighting life or death battles. Someone who wanted this war to be over when he wasn't trying to kill Yzak and his friends. He imagined someone who was likeable for the first time. Someone who was being misled by those damn naturals. Yzak imagined those sad grayish purple eyes.

Yzak imagined a kid.

The battles were harder to fight now that an ultimate evil person wasn't controlling the suit anymore. It was harder to try and destroy someone who he thought of as a kid, a sad kid.

Then Nichol died because he couldn't fight a kid.

In his mind he wondered how the kid he imagined felt about taking one of their lives. He imagined that the kid was probably being bombarded with congratulations about Nichol's death. He imagined the kid being sad.

But then he remembered Nichol.

He knew Nichol.

He knew that Nichol liked the piano, enjoyed the ocean breeze, preferred pudding over jello as his dessert, and that he hated this damned war.

So if he couldn't protect the people he knew because of a boy that he could only imagine then it was time to stop.

He stopped imagining that the kid was having a hard time because he knew that Athrun and Dearka were having a hard time.

He stopped imagining that the kid disliked this war because he knew that Athrun and Nichol hated it.

He stopped imagining that kid was hurt because he knew that Nichol was dead.

He stopped imagining the kid.

He remembered the monster that kid his friends.

It was easy to fight again, it was easy to kill a monster. He was more then happy to work to kill a monster that had taken so much from him. Easy to fight a monster that had killed so many people that he had known and respected. It was too easy.

Then he was dead.

Athrun had blown him up.

It was just too damn easy.

He forced himself to not imagine a dead kid somewhere on that island.

Months went by and he managed not to think too much about the pilot of the Strike. He focused on things that were more important then some dead kid. He focused on his job as a pilot for the Zaft army. As he fought in Alaska he could only truly remember the moment he thought his life was going to end as a beam sword was heading for his cockpit. Then in an instant he hears a young voice commanding him to get out of there and before he can retort someone is carrying him away and the Cyclops system goes off.

He realizes that he has been saved.

Then in an instant he was pointing a gun at the Buster and Dearka was telling him that the pilot of the Strike was the same as the pilot of the Freedom, the mobile suit that had saved him back in Alaska. That the kid was friends with Athrun and the images of those sad greyish-purple eyes appeared again and he was angry.

Then before he could really even come to turns with the pilot's continued survival and the fact that he had been saved by the kid/monster the war is over. Athrun's dad is dead and there's nothing but hope for the future.

And he finally meets the pilot of the Strike.

He and Dearka are at Nichol's grave when Athrun, Lacus, and a stranger arrived. It's only when Dearka tenses and looks uncomfortably between him and the stranger does he make the jump to the fact that the stranger, the boy who he vaguely recognized as the one from ORB who had a robotic bird, was the pilot of the Strike. Athrun tenses and whispers something into the Strike pilot's ear which makes the boy look uneasy in turn. Lacus doesn't let them escape though, she grabs their hands and pulls them forward. There's an awkward silence and he knows that Dearka's tensed up next to him, expecting Yzak to be angry and make a scene.

Yzak wants to be angry.

He's finally meeting the one who's killed and hurt so many people he knows, including himself and the boy who's grave he's standing in front of.

But then he sees the roses in the Pilot's hands and those damn sad grayish purple eyes and he finds himself extending a hand out to the pilot, "My name is Yzak Joule. Pilot of the Duel." he offers and everyone except for Lacus seems surprised.

Then the boy smiles and after only a moment to get over his surprise he extends his own hand gripping Yzak's in a firm handshake, "I'm Kira Yamato. Pilot of the Strike and Pilot of the Freedom." he responds.

Yzak doesn't have to imagine anymore.


End file.
